


Cultural Diversity

by wooden_turtle



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Cathar!Hermione Granger, Discord: Bellamione Cult, F/F, Hermione is a catgirl okay, Jedi Code Bashing (Star Wars), Jedi!Hermione Granger, Sane Bellatrix Black Lestrange, Sith!Bellatrix Lestrange, swtor spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 16:48:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28656750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wooden_turtle/pseuds/wooden_turtle
Summary: Senior Padawan Hermione Granger is conducting a private investigation of sorts. She wants to find out more about the Force and her place in the Galaxy—more than her seniors deem wise to teach her.In the Security District of Nar Shaddaa, she meets an unlikely companion...
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Bellatrix Black Lestrange
Comments: 7
Kudos: 41





	Cultural Diversity

**Author's Note:**

> So! This has been sitting in my docs for several months now, and I kept delaying posting it because I was hoping to get the second chapter going. Buut that hasn't happened so far, so. Yeet!
> 
> I can't make any promises about further chapters. I do have a vague idea what I want out of this, but my brain doesn't want to cooperate and put it into words.

_There is no ignorance, there is knowledge._

She had recited the Code countless times since she was old enough to speak, but this line always rang discordant in the Force to her. She meditated on it. She questioned her feelings. She asked her crèche master, her teachers, her Jedi Master. She got side-eyed and looked at uneasily, mutters following her like ripples in her wake. That girl was too keen for her own good. Just a bit too intense.

She couldn’t help it.

How could there be no ignorance if she could feel it so strongly, a palpable gap within her mind, a void that begged, demanded to be filled? She threw herself into her studies with ardor, but every book she read brought five more on her never-ending list; every question answered raised three more; every piece of knowledge she gained showed her how much more she was missing.

There was so much to know, so much to learn, and she was drowning.

She wasn’t alone, ostensibly, but she might as well have been. The Order was raw and pained, tired from decades of fighting the Sith Empire. She might have been bright and eager, but she must have been born in the wrong generation. The Galaxy was no place for peace or study, and questioning the tenets that were the one truth holding them together…

Haunted eyes followed her in the halls of the Tython temple, barely furnished as it was only just finished. Too many of the Knights have lost their brothers and sisters to the Dark, either in battle, or drawn to the other side by the same innocuous questions that this child was now asking.

She was taken as a Padawan. Her Master was brave, and firm in his faith in the Force. He kept a level head in a battle—and of battles, there were plenty. He would correct her stance when she went through her katas, offer curt praise when she improved, and made her feel respected when he skimmed through her coursework reports.

She couldn’t help but feel disheartened. When she had been an Initiate, she would dream of a Master who felt the need to learn as much as she did, who would spend days holed in the Archives with her, who would help her find her place in the Force and in the Galaxy.

What she didn’t know was that behind the closed doors of a Council session, her future Master had been chosen for her by Jedi with haunted eyes, the ones who stopped to look in the halls of the Temple, the ones who needed to make sure she would not follow in the footsteps of those who would never return.

Every night, when circumstances allowed, Hermione Granger and her Master would meditate together, and they would recite the Code.

Every night, the second line of the Code rang wrong to her.

~*~*~

Senior Padawan Hermione Granger was carrying out a reconnaissance mission on Nar Shaddaa. It was nasty business; however, much as her Master might have had his misgivings about sending her on yet another solo mission, it couldn’t be helped.

She gave a sad chuckle. The Jedi and the Sith might have signed the peace treaty, but it only seemed to increase the Order’s workload. Gone were the days of assaults, ambushes, and combat tactics. Now, her days and nights were filled with undercover recon. ‘We don’t trust you a single bit, but that would be impolite to say out loud, so let’s observe each other closely while pretending we aren’t.’

Her face scrunched into a scowl. Some days, she felt like the Jedi and the Sith thought way more similarly than they liked to pretend. For all her scholar inclinations, she found she much preferred the overt fighting she had grown up with.

Case in point: here she was, in a desolate smugglers’ den way out in the Outer Rim, clinging to shadows as she made her way through the local Industrial Sector. She wore a hooded robe and had a blaster clipped onto her belt. Her lightsaber was out of the view, just in reach in case things went way too bad. No use attracting attention on a “neutral” (read: lawless) world unless you have no other options left.

Her tongue was burnt from the bitter swill they called caff in this forsaken place. She couldn’t wait to hop into her ship and get off planet.

Well, technically, she could turn around and do just that… Her recon task was complete; she only had to finish up her report. Sith citizens about, but not overly brash. No suspicious arms or goods movements, no more suspicious than the usual Hutt dealings in any case. No signs of impending trouble. She idly wondered if she should spin her unfortunate caff experience into something along the lines of, “Quality of basic necessities still below norm in the wake of recent war shortages.”

The thing was, she was only still on planet because she had a… personal investigation. Of sorts. To attend to. The one she intended to keep off record because her Master wouldn’t at all be pleased to learn she hadn’t grown out of her bad habits. Namely, seeking knowledge on the subjects the Jedi Order thought too touchy to discuss.

The knowledge she was reasonably sure she’d find on a certain Datacron or two that she had on good (if disreputable) authority she’d be able to locate in the vicinity.

She rounded a corner and was well on her way toward the force shield that guarded the entrance to an incinerator room when her instincts made her tense and turn her head abruptly to the right. She didn’t feel the Force scream out in warning, so that was something. She breathed in and out, laying a hand on her blaster, just in case.

Across the hall, right about the same distance as she was to the incinerator’s entrance, she could barely make out another hooded figure. Their face wasn’t visible (was that a glint of gold under their hood? she couldn’t be sure), but judging by their posture they were just as surprised as she was. Also, really, really tall.

Hermione made a slow, tentative step forward. It was immediately mirrored by the figure, and their hand snapped up, blaster trained at her in an obvious warning. Hermione felt the weight of her own one in her hand and realized she had also drawn hers out. She didn’t risk taking another step.

“I wish you no harm,” she said as calm as she could manage. She didn’t; she only wanted to get her Datacron (all right, no one’s Datacron as of yet) in peace.

“Why should I care for your wishes?” the figure snapped back. It was a woman; she had a deep voice, commanding and haughty, and didn’t seem very patient from her reply. That was unfortunate.

Hermione was being reckless and she knew it, but she couldn’t stop herself from replying, “Well, I’ve got a blaster pointing at you and I’m pretty sure I’ll have the time to pull the trigger should you decide to shoot me.”

The figure hmphed. “I suppose you’re here for the same reason as I am,” she said after another moment of tense consideration.

“Looks like you’re right,” Hermione replied, barely stopping herself from nodding. She wouldn’t want to startle her company with sudden movement.

Another pause. The figure slowly inclined her head, measuring up her opponent. “Name one reason why I shouldn’t dispose of you here and now. Other than that mistaken assumption of yours that you could take me out in a fight.”

“I know the code to the vault inside?” Hermione volunteered, barely restraining the urge to roll her eyes.

“So do I,” the figure shot back. Damn; worth a try.

Hermione was thinking quickly. The woman seemed impatient, true, but if she’d really had no qualms about escalating their negotiations to blaster fire, she’d already have done that. Her commanding tone notwithstanding, she wasn’t really behaving on the offensive.

“Look, I know you have no reason to trust me,” Hermione began in a confident yet placating tone. “But I’m here for the Datacron, same as you. It’s not like we can’t copy the data twice. I have no incentive to hurt you, I don’t even know who you are, nor do I care.” The figure’s hood jerked a bit at that, as if she had raised her chin in proud disdain but kept her quiet. “Besides,” Hermione smirked, “I’m not that keen on dealing with a body on my hands, in a _Security District_ at that. Are you?”

There it was again, a golden glint under the woman’s hood. She chuckled softly.

“No, I don’t suppose I am.”

They slowly lowered their blasters. When the weapons were holstered, the woman held up her hand.

“This is all fine and dandy, but I wouldn’t advise you to get too close to me if you value your continued well-being. I might be playing nice...” she said with mock annoyance, “but don’t forget that I don’t trust you.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. This time she didn’t even bother to keep herself from the gesture; she had her hood on, anyway. “Could you please make up your mind if you’re warning me or flirting with me?”

She was getting rather good at reading hooded-figure expressions. This one was a mixture of an annoyed huff, a pleased grin, and a wary look. The woman didn’t dignify the quip with a verbal response.

“Right…” Hermione resumed after a pause. “So, we get through the flames, one of us punches in the code, 326:3918—”

“What? No, the code is 326:3782.”

“That can’t be right,” Hermione replied with quite a bit more condescension than her Master would be proud of. “I’m reasonably sure of my sources.”

“So am I,” the figure sniped back.

“I got this from a local in the lower levels cantina. She seemed to know what he was talking about, said she worked maintenance in this area,” Hermione elaborated, a tad defensively.

The figure paused in consideration. “Human, female, dresses like she has more pride than taste, tried to get you buy her a drink for the information?”

Hermione startled: that was quite specific. “Yes, why?”

“I got my code the same way.”

”The fucker,” they said in perfect unison.

The commiserate silence was broken by another scoff from the figure. “You never can trust them unless they’re at your blaster point; I should have done better.”

Hermione didn’t know what disquieted her more: the casualness that was in the woman’s voice when she talked about violence, or the fact that she was finding herself to agree with the sentiment.

She shook her head, focusing on the present moment. “Right, well… My intuition is rather good, you know,” she said tentatively. Better phrase it that way; she didn’t want the figure to find out she was strong in the Force. “I’m quite sure I’ll be able to pick the right code once we’re there.”

Hermione was expecting the figure to give yet another scoff and make things difficult by bringing up her trust issues once again. What she did not expect was for the figure to tilt her head, seemingly giving her another intent look. Damn; this did not bode well.

“What a coincidence,” said the woman slowly, “my intuition is rather good, too.”

Double damn. Hermione reached out into the Force yet again. It kept silent. The woman’s Force signature seemed perfectly normal; not Sith, not Jedi. Then again, so did Hermione’s. Her Master made sure she could hide in the Force, mimicking a non-Force-sensitive mind, before he allowed her to go solo on neutral territory assignments.

This wasn’t an easy feat. If the woman wasn’t bluffing, she must be strong in the Force, too.

Jedi or Sith? Each was equally probable. Hermione hoped she wouldn’t have to learn which. She looked back at the woman, chin held high. “Then let’s find out if they agree.”

She crossed the distance to the incinerator chamber. The figure did the same, letting out a cackle in response to Hermione’s remark. It didn’t sound much benevolent.

Hermione sighed, taking a moment to stare at the flames behind the chamber’s force shield. They were streaming up at different angles from a number of nozzles. It played tricks with her eyes: she half expected the flames’ red and the shield’s blue to mix into a shade of purple, but the force shield’s light was much too hard for that. Its horizontal lines uniformly divided the blazing streams, just as the hiss of the incinerator unit stood out stark in contrast to the humming of the shields.

“It rather looks like the fire is a prisoner of this place, doesn’t it?”

The woman’s words startled Hermione: she had zoned out for a moment and didn’t notice her approach. Slowly, she nodded. It did rather look like that.

“A shame,” the other continued. “Fire is meant to be free.”

“We are not committing arson. Just in case you weren’t sure,” Hermione quipped, but a smile was evident in her tone. She wasn’t the one to like fire much, but it did feel unnatural for it to be contained here. It looked defeated; almost hurt.

“Ooh, pity.” Was she… pouting? “And here I thought this was shaping up a nice date.“

Hermione chuckled. Not that she would be opposed: the woman was proving an entertaining interlocutor.

“If you really want to take me on a date, please do think of a pastime that doesn’t involve running from a security district’s detail.”

“Buzzkill,” the figure muttered.

Hermione sighed, and her next words came out more solemn than she had expected. “Let’s put it like this. For this caged creature, putting it out will be a mercy killing.”

She could sense that the woman was surprised. After pondering Hermione’s words, she replied softly, “I suppose I have to agree.”

They shared another quiet moment. Hermione blinked a couple times to shake herself out of this contemplative mood; she didn’t come down here for melancholic musings.

“Off we go, then?” The figure nodded. Hermione approached the doorway and used the nearby console to lower the force shield.

At once, a wave of heat washed over her face. She quickly lowered her head and shielded herself from it with her elbow. Without the shields humming, the steady hissing seemed ever so louder in the silent hallway.

She took a deep breath, cleared her mind, and launched inside in a Force-enhanced jump.

All philosophical ramblings on the nature of fire aside, Hermione had to face an inevitably real, mundane observation. Fire, as she had always suspected, was really, _really_ hot. She came out of her jump with a roll, making sure to stay clear of the ground nozzles and to keep to the side of the room. In the corner of her eye, she spotted a blur of black and knew that her unwitting partner was also in motion.

She came out of her roll and sprang to her feet, leaping the last meter that separated her and the blessedly fire-free end of the room. It was still hot, of course; the incinerator controls ought to be on the same terminal that would open the vault’s door; the terminal they discovered they didn’t know the code to.

There was no time to worry. She was near the console already, and so was the figure.

She passed her hand over the keypad, focusing intently, willing the currents of the Force to be known to her. She might not agree with the Code on the ignorance part, but she couldn’t deny that there was knowledge. The knowledge she had a need of; and just like the Force, it was hers.

“It’s 326:3827,” she panted out and was surprised to hear it echoed. Their intuitions did appear to have reached a consensus. Great; she had no idea what she would have done if they didn’t.

_Prudent as always, Hermione,_ she mocked herself as her fingers fleeted over the keypad, punching in the sequence. The screen lit up green. She let out the tension she had been holding and quickly found the command to turn the blasted thing off. Their whole adventure, counting from the moment she had lowered the force shield, could not have lasted more than ten seconds.

The flames cut off abruptly and Hermione blinked unwittingly as the room plunged into half-darkness, dim-lit by technical lights and the console’s screen. Her pupils widened to compensate. She knew logically that the air in the room was still hot, but it felt cool on her face compared to what she had just rolled through. Thank the Force she had thought to treat her cloak with a fire retardant.

She turned to the figure to flash a victorious smile and choked on her first lungful of fire-free air.

The fire was gone, true, but the chamber’s industry-grade vents were still happily pumping the air. The sudden change in the air pressure, her brain helpfully supplied even as her mind was stuck in shock, had caused a gust of wind that must have blown their hoods off. Her companion’s hood off, at least.

Because her hood was off.

And it had been concealing, as she had just found out, the unmistakable bright red skin and glinting golden eyes of a Sith Pureblood.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is a thing. I have a couple of blocks going forward, and the main one is, do I actually have the guts to make Hermione a Cathar?..
> 
> Here's the pic that makes me want to do it (SFW but slightly suggestive): https://sketchymcdrawpants.wordpress.com/2013/03/27/971-cathar-smuggler/
> 
> I am weak. I know.
> 
> Please let me know in the comments what is your stance on the possible Cathar!Hermione!


End file.
